We've got some major heroes on board this week, from those serving the country in full honor and glory, to childhood heroes. Marshmallow Men busting ghost agents (Ghostbusters: The Video Game), WWI fliers, they're all in this week's On Shelves list. Dig in and enjoy.

No, you're not seeing things, those colorful little blobs are playing volleyball. For those who've seen them before, you can get them for your PSP. Get all the blobby details for Blobby Volley in the full article.


Download: Blobby Volley

Volleyball games aren't too easy to come by, but Sony PlayStation Portable homebrew coder Alois may have something that will interest you. It's called Blobby Volley PSP version 0.3 and it's out now. It still has  a few bugs from the previous version, but things will hopefully improve as we go forward.





Download: Blobby Volley PSP v0.3

It's still unclear whether The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu in Japan) will explode in the video game industry, even after proving to be an extremely successful franchise that spawned as light novels before turning into one of the most popular anime today. Fortunately, the signs of "Haruhiism" are there, and a big one is coming this Christmas. We've found a video of Namco Bandai's Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku (The Promise of Haruhi Suzumiya in English) for the PSP, and realized that Japanese otaku and gamers alike will have a blast this holiday season.

Let's face it, a Haruhi RPG will be quite awkward. It's easier to visualize a fighting game of bunny girls and high school girls in witch outfits (Namco Bandai, are you listening?), but we're getting what seems to be a visual novel for now. Apparently, there's also a volleyball mini-game. Considering how disarming plot twists and eccentric characters made the series attractive to young and old, we won't be surprised if the game's focus will remain on these elements.

Sounds awesome? Don't sell your soul to the S.O.S. Brigade yet, watch this trailer first.

If you've ever wanted to play volleyball on your PSP, then goebish's year-ender submission to the forums, PSP Volley, is for you! It's intended to be a blobby volley clone - not a port, since while goebish used the gfx's from the blobby volley 2 sourceforge project, the game code's entirely all his blood, sweat, and tears.

He labels this game as a beta 0.2. It's fully playable; the game rules are in place, complete with jigglypuff AI, no worries there. He just wasn't able to implement a scoreboard - having lost the code, he'll have to reconstruct for a future update -  but you can always keep a manual score and not lie about being beat by a blob of jelly whom you've named Loco.

Basic controls are simple: D-left/right to move blob, X to jump, L and R to decrease and increase game speed. Start - NOT SELECT, but START - exits to XBM. Like the guy said, it was an unfinished game.

Installation:

• 1.5 firmware: copy the content of the 1.5 folder into your PSP/GAME folder
• 1.0, 2.71SE and 3.02OE: copy the content of the 1.0 folder into your PSP/GAME or PSP/GAME150 folder depending of your fw settings.

Download: [PSP Volley beta 0.2]
Discuss: [Forum Discussion Thread]

Sometimes, the weirdest things can inspire one to move to greater heights, explore wider horizons, or make an invention reeking of utter genius. Sometimes boredom, sparked by Comedy Central's Mind of Mencia can well, make you want to create a homebrew game.

This is what happened to Hippie (thanks for the heads up!), who debuted the homebrew world by creating Stereotype Volleyball, his first game ever. The premise is actually simple: both players (who are situated at either end of the screen) are given five points at the start of the game, and the first one who gains 10 points wins. Thing is, whenever a player gets a point, the opponent loses one in exchange. So when a player gains 10 points, the other one is left with nothing.

Making the ball land on the ground grants a player a point, a well as whenever your opponent makes a mistake. So this is where you could put your mind games into use: you could psych out your opponent to make him screw up. The game is also peppered with sarcastic remarks whenever a player would lose a point ("Player 1 doesn't need an opponent to lose", "Player 2 ... um..."), so you could lose in purpose just so you could get a good laugh from the comments.

Eager to check out the game? The controls of the game are listed below:

Player 1:

• Left: Move Left
• Up: Jump
• Right: Move Right
• Down: Select/Continue/Confirm

Player 2:

• Square: Move Left
• Triangle: Jump
• Circle: Move Right
• Cross: Select/Continue/Confirm

You can download Stereotype Volleyball here. And while you're at it, maybe you might want to try Slime Volleyball, another volleyball homebrew game.

Download: [Stereotype Volleyball]

Alas! The spiker slimes are back. After more than a month of training, they are back for another round of high spiking volleyball action. And this time, they have acquired some darn wicked humor.

Previously featured here in QJ, we have seen the humble beginnings of this creation by mEo. It wasn't much to look at back then, and don't get me started on functionality, because it can only do so much. Just check out the log.

This time around, he releases the first working version of the game. Although he admits it isn't anywhere near finished, I can say that things are looking up for this homebrew.  I do have to wonder what happened to the call he made to graphics artists to "spruce the game up a bit?"

But, seriously, I was most impressed that these two half-moons have acquired some sass, and they don't even have fingers to do the snap thing. If you want maximum results from this game, I suggest you play it with your best bud, because you can even deliver the trash talk with feeling. If you don't have a best bud, then you might as well start training to be ambidextrous. Use your directional buttons on the left side to control Player 1, while your right hand would be in command of the buttons on the right.

Hopefully, there will be more improvements made to this game, some music wouldn't hurt, or maybe even the two players exchanging courts once in a while.

Log:

Hey guys!

Here is the first working version of Slime Volleyball PSP! It's out of BETA, but it is still not 100% perfect. I am extremely happy with how well it is doing however, two people are able to successfully play multiple games. There is now a menu, credits and easy exit, scoring and much more. Please feel free to comment about how it can be improved, or just your general opinion.

mEo

Download: [Slime Volleyball PSP (Working Version)]